Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Pondering the Dempster Highway, YT, 5/20/2014

While I was leaving Dawson City on the Klondike Highway, I saw the intersection with the Dempster Highway, going north into the Canadian Arctic. This was another crazy wild road deep into the wilderness. Prior to that moment, I had every intention of heading back south. But I sat there at that intersection for a short while, pondering whether to take the highway. Finally I figured that I might as well, since I was here, and who knows if or when I would be there again.

But I needed gas, since there were very few places on the Dempster to get gas. There was this weird self-service station at the intersection of the Dempster Highway and the Klondike Highway that had a highly complicated routine for getting "approved" for gas...you basically had to get some sort of "membership" type relationship with the gas station to get gas. I tried to go through the ritual it prescribed, but could not get it to work at all, and it would not take my credit card. So, grumbling to myself, I headed back to Dawson City (about 40 kms back) to get gas, and returned to head up the Dempster Highway.